HG Matters Issue 2 | Page 15

Daily Diary Scores Measure Success To evaluate efficacy and tolerability, the researchers will look primarily at daily Motherisk-PUQE (pregnancy-unique quantification of emesis and nausea) scores. Other measures of effectiveness will include maternal and fetal outcomes as well as patients’: - oral nutrition, or nutrients taken by mouth versus intravenously - quality of life - overall level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the medication - blood laboratory values - need for IV hydration or hospital admission Prior Results Show Dramatic Improvements Guttuso led a pilot study involving seven hyperemesis gravidarum patients, published in Early Human Development in January 2010. After two weeks of gabapentin therapy, patients’ nausea decreased by an average of 80 percent and vomiting decreased by 94 percent. The research team also included Luther K. Robinson, MD, professor of pediatrics. Guttuso’s prior research also has linked gabapentin with marked reductions in refractory nausea and vomiting in other patient populations. Research Gives Women ‘Renewed Sense of Hope’ The importance of Guttuso’s research to women facing hyperemesis gravidarum is reflected in a Facebook group that provides information about the use of gabapentin during pregnancy. According to one of the group’s administrators, about 100 people have joined so far. “These women who thought they would never be able to have another child are being given a renewed sense of hope,” she wrote in a message to Guttuso. - See more at: http://medicine.buffalo.edu/news_and_ events/news.host.html/content/shared/ smbs/news/2014/05/pregnancynausea-drug3644.detail.html#sthash.vGYZ6gDY.dpuf Click here to join the Gabapentin Facebook Support Group 14